


Picking Up the Pieces when You've Broken the World

by LunaEarnshaw



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Anger, Dark, F/M, Grief, Not Canon Compliant, Spoilers for Episode 102, Suicidal Ideation, Suicide, Unhealthy Relationships, dark Keyleth, friendships breaking, maybe just don't read this, that's one nice thing, the rest is angst, this is really upsetting, vex superhero style taking on the role of champion of the raven queen, vox machina arguing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-23 13:06:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11403015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunaEarnshaw/pseuds/LunaEarnshaw
Summary: When Vax falls, Keyleth frees the being trapped in the skull to get him back. Consequently, there are two superhuman villains loose in Exandria, Vox Machina is broken, Keyleth faces the possibility that she is no better than Delilah Briarwood, Vax is cut off from his god, Percy will never trust Keyleth again, Pike struggles to find a balance between her morals and her friends, Grog misses the days when he could just punch things, Scanlan doesn't know what to do, Taryon wants what's best for Vex, and Vex is happy to have her brother back, she thinks...The thing about breaking the world for the one you love, is that the world is now broken, and you have to live in it.





	Picking Up the Pieces when You've Broken the World

**Author's Note:**

> This fic doesn't fully comply with the canonical events of Critical Role or the mechanics of D&D 5e. There is no True Resurrection in this fic. And I ignore the spell slots Keyleth would have had left at the end of ep 102, and she does more in the equivalent of one turn than the rules would allow her to. I am aware of that, but I'm ignoring it for story.

           “He’s gone, but I can get him back,” says Keyleth in response to Vex’s question.

 

            She takes charge of the group: overseeing the gathering of Vax’s ashes, placing his belongings into the bag of holding, facilitating the exchange between Grog and the nymph for their passage through the crossing. She hasn’t cried once.

 

            “She’s in denial, isn’t she?” Percy asks Pike. “I mean, there’s no way, is there?”

 

            Pike gives a small shrug. “Without a body there’s nothing I can do.”

 

            “Keyleth, what are you…?” Percy starts to say.

 

            “Later,” Keyleth says. “Did you get all the ashes?”

 

            “Yes, Scanlan’s got them. Keyleth–”

 

            “Not now, Percy.” She turns back to the nymph.

 

            A few moments later, Keyleth’s looking back at them, telling them they can cross. Pike and Percy exchange a look, and approach the crossing. Scanlan shuffles uncomfortably behind them cradling the jug that he filled with Vax’s ashes. Grog stands by Keyleth looking at his feet, his body shaking, his fists clenched. It looks like he’s raging, but if anyone could see his eyes they would see they were full of grief not bloodlust. Not that anyone sees his eyes because he won’t meet anyone’s gaze, still staring down at his feet.

 

            “Vex?”

 

            Vex is still seated on a flat rock, a little ways away from the nymph’s lake. There’s tears streaming down her cheeks. She looks down at Fenthras in her lap. She can just make out the carved word through the tears in her eyes. _Forgiveness._ She feels like it’s mocking her. No one’s approached her yet. Percy feels like he should be the one to. He loves her dearly, and she’s just died only to come back to find that her twin is not only dead, but utterly destroyed, but something about the sight of the solitary figure on the rock makes him keep his distance.

 

            “Vex.” Keyleth is at Vex’s shoulder. Her voice is soft, but urgent. “Vex, I will get him back, but we have to go.”

 

            “Go where?”

 

            “Back to Exandria.”

 

            “How will that help Vax?” Vex’ahlia’s voice breaks over her brother’s name.

 

            “I have a plan.”

 

            “What?”

 

            “I’ll tell you when we get there. Trust me.”

 

            “Ok.” Her voice is hollow.

 

            “I will bring your brother back to you. I promise.”

 

            Zombie-like, Vex slowly follows the party. The world seems to whirl around Vox Machina as they pass through the portal between planes, overwhelming and dizzying but mercifully not damaging, unlike the portal to the Shadowfell. Then as suddenly as it came the whirling almost hurtling sensation stops, and they are standing in a place not unlike the one they left but duller, less vibrant in it’s colors, less fantastical in it’s plant-life, the eternal twilight sky of the Feywild replaced by a light grey. Vex’s ranger senses register the coming of dawn and the smell of rain. The rest of her isn’t registering much of anything.

 

            “Alright, everyone ready?” Keyleth asks having located a tree large enough to allow for transportation.

 

            “Where are we going?” Percy asks.

 

            “Whitestone?” Scanlan suggests.

 

            “Emon,” says Keyleth.

 

            “Why Emon?” Grog asks.

 

            “I’ll explain when we get there,” Keyleth says and faces the tree again.

 

            “No, you’ll explain now,” says Percy grabbing her arm, stopping her mid-incantation. “You clearly have an idea, tell us what it is. I’m not going with you anywhere until I know what’s going on.”

 

            “I thought of a way to get Vax back.”

 

            “Which is?”

 

            Keyleth is quiet for a moment before she speaks, and when she does she sounds like she’s choosing her words very carefully, “Before the Conclave attacked we found something, an ancient being with the power to grant a wish.”

 

           Most of Vox Machina looks at her blankly, but recognition flashes in Percy’s eyes. “Not the…” he begins.

 

          “The skull,” says Keyleth.

 

         “Keyleth, that thing in there, it was evil,” Pike says softly.

 

         “Yeah, when I wanted to use it, weren’t you all like real upset, like you were all, ‘No, Grog, don’t use the skull thing that will save like… a lot of people it’s all evil or whatever’,” Grog adds.

 

         “It is evil. It is unsafe. And it is not to be trusted,” Percy says.

 

            “I wasn’t saying that it was, but we can handle it. We’re equipped to handle it now. Whatever it is, we’ll take it down. We always do,” Keyleth insists.

 

            “Vecna’s out on the loose, and you want to let out another big bad? This a terrible plan,” says Scanlan. “Okay, I’m on board.” Keyleth gives Scanlan a small grateful smile. It looks a little more like a grimace.

 

            “No. No. No,” Percy says taking a hold of her hands. “Keyleth, listen to me… just listen… listen to me, Keyleth. This is not a good deal. Trust a man who has made some very bad deals with highly questionable entities beyond what I could understand. This thing will fuck with you Keyleth. Even if you manage to destroy it somehow, it will twist your words somehow, use your wish against you.”

 

            “We’ll phrase it just right,” Keyleth protests.

 

            “It’ll win. Things like this always win. Keyleth, I know you’re grieving and afraid, but–”

           

            “You know nothing about how I’m feeling!” Keyleth bursts out. She slams her staff down on the ground, and for a second Vox Machina thinks she’s casting a spell, but it’s just unfocused druidic energy coming from the staff as though her power is pouring out of her. “I am angry.”

 

            “That is worse,” Percy says simply.

 

            “Right now I am angry at you. So what you’re the only one who gets to make bad decisions? I have stood by you as you went on a murder spree, but when I was face to face with Raishan and I had _every_ right to vengeance you held me back. And now you’re telling me that you’re the only one who gets to benefit from fucked up deals with shady entities. Fuck. You.”

 

            “You think I benefitted from Orthax?” he shouts.

 

            “Yes. Yes as a matter of fact I do. I mean, who would you be without him? No seriously think about it, who would Percy be without his guns? A little man with a title that stood for nothing, so full of guilt over his cowardice, wishing he’d been shot in the back along with his sister. Hey, at least that way a lot fewer people would be dead.”

 

            A silence.

 

            A long silence.

 

            Keyleth’s words seem to reverberate through the air as though held aloft there by magic.

 

            Then.

 

            “Low blow, Keyleth,” Vex’ahlia says quietly.

 

            “I just don’t want to see you get hurt, Kiki,” Percy says.

 

            Keyleth lets out a laugh that comes our shill, too loud and too long. It makes the other’s jump. “Don’t you think it’s a little late for that?” Keyleth gasps out between bouts of inappropriate and almost disturbing laughter.

 

            “Vex, talk her out of it,” Percy begs. A memory comes back to Vex.

 

            _The ruins of Abadar’s Promenade in Emon. Keyleth taking Vax’s hand and speaking in an urgent whisper that Vex’s keen senses pick up easily, “Vax, talk her out of it.” Vax. Vax standing amidst the rubble, daggers at his hips, arms crossed, solemn and brooding but there._

_Vax._

         “Vex,” Percy says again.

 

        Vex shrugs.

 

         “Are you with me?” Keyleth asks.

 

         “I don’t know, Keyleth. A part of me does want to bring him back no matter the cost. I just need my brother.” Tears are streaming down Vex’s cheeks again. “But I don’t think Vax would want that. I have a feeling he wouldn’t actually. Vax always ran into danger. He was ready to be the first to fall, to take the fall for us. It gave him purpose. To be honest, I think it was the only thing that kept him sane.” Vex gives a laugh at that, genuine if a bit hollow. “And on the one hand I want to say, ‘you’ve done enough, Vax, let other people… let _me_ take the fall for you, just this once’. But then he wouldn’t want it any other way, would he? And _fuck_ that, but… And this… I don’t think the Raven Queen would like it,” Vex finishes in small voice.

 

          “Well, fuck the Raven Queen!” Keyleth says.

 

          “I know, right,” Vex says. “But Vax didn’t see it that way.”

 

          “Vex, help me get him back,” Keyleth pleads.

 

          “Vex,” Percy says with a warning in his voice.

 

          “I… I don’t know… I…” Vex’s voice trails off.

 

         “Pike?” Keyleth asks.

 

         “I’m sorry Keyleth, but I can’t,” Pike says.

 

         “I though Sarenrae believed in second chances,” Keyleth says.

 

         “She does, but not like this,” Pike replies.

 

         “Grog?” Keyleth asks turning to him. He just looks at Pike, and then grimaces at Keyleth apologetically. If it came down to a choice, Grog would always choose to go along with Pike. “Alright, just me and you then Scanlan.”

 

         “Umm…” Scanlan says looking around at the group. He doesn’t want to lose them, to ruin things, so soon after coming back.

 

          “Coward,” she tells him, knowing it will hurt. “All of you. Fucking cowards!”

 

         “I was in hell!” Percy exclaims suddenly. Keyleth looks at him confused. “You asked who I would be without Orthax, said I benefitted from him. When I died, I was in hell. Pain like you wouldn’t imagine. I know torture, but I’ve never felt anything like this. No end, no sense, just torment. This is what’s at stake here, Keyleth.”

 

          “I would face hell for Vax.”

 

         “But would you subject others to it?”

 

        “Maybe I would.”

 

        “No,” Percy shakes his head frantically. “No, you’re better than that. Better than _her_.”

 

         Keyleth grabs the ashes from Scanlan, and turns to the tree muttering an incantation. The trunk splits open creating a passageway through which they can see Keyleth’s garden in Emon and the walls of Greyskull Keep. Keyleth stepped into the tree.

 

            “No!” Percy rushes to follow her, but is stopped by thorny vines that have appeared suddenly blocking the entranceway behind Keyleth. He draws his sword and attempts to hack at the vines. But the passage is already closing. “Keyleth, don’t do this! You’re a good person!” Percy shouts.

 

            Before the passage closes, he can hear Keyleth’s quiet voice, “I’m not.”

 

            And then the hole in the tree trunk closes. The vines fall away into nothingness. Vox Machina is left standing in the woods, afraid, in pain, and uncertain, with Percy’s sword sticking out of the tree.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Idk why I like tearing apart Vox Machina when I'm writing fic. I'm so sorry. There will be more in a week at the latest.  
> <3 LunaEarnshaw


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